He said Ensley and Riviera had been competitors in the past, though Riviera focused on the Permian Basin and Ensley is more wide-spread geographically. For its part, he said Pritchard was looking to enter the transaction services business so the three combined to leverage their expertise. He stressed that this new business combination is "not a start-up but three ongoing businesses pulling together."

For customers, he said, the move should be seamless, with clients being able to access more resources.

"I think we wouldn't have done it if we couldn't make it hum better," Ensley said.

Already, he noted, Riviera-Ensley is seeing more deal flow as the economy strengthens after little dealmaking last year. "The markets are turning in our favor," Ensley said.

Riviera has been in business since 1997 with most of its work focused in West Texas. Ensley has been in business since 1992. It has facilitated a broad spectrum of upstream and mid-stream transactions across the lower 48 states and the Gulf of Mexico. Pritchard, founded in 2001, is an independent investment bank and institutional financial services firm, focused on idea generation and intelligence in the oil, gas and power markets. The company has offices in New Orleans, Atlanta, Houston, New York and Washington, D.C.